The present invention relates to an electrical component mounting system and one particularly useful for mounting components in a vehicle, such as an automobile.
Automotive electrical components, such as bulbs, fuses and the like, typically are mounted in electrical sockets which are mechanically and electrically affixed either to conventional electrical circuit boards or to other insulative substrates, such as lamp housings or in the case of fuses a fuse block assembly. Some of the mounting sockets employ insulation displacement connectors for directly attaching the sockets to electrical wiring harnesses, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,634. Other mounting arrangements for bulbs may include the utilization of a socket which compressively engages conductors on a printed circuit board as, for example, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,635. Further, electrical circuits for receiving replaceable components may themselves define the socket for receiving the bulb as, for example, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,091,831. Stamped electrical circuits also have been used, particularly with illuminated vanity visor packages in which stamped electrical circuit conductors are terminated in bulb receiving sockets formed by the end of the conductors themselves.
Although these various mounting systems all have their advantages, the underlying circuit construction is typically specifically made for a particular component typically requiring soldering the sockets to an existing circuit board or somehow forming the electrical circuit to define the sockets themselves. There remains a need, therefore, for an electrical circuit for use particularly in a vehicle, such as an automobile, which has the flexibility of receiving sockets for a variety of components such as fuses, lamps and other electrical components which can either be mounted in plug-in sockets which cooperate with the circuit board or by other coupling means which allows the easy replacement of such circuit components.